TT78124

TT No.124: Andrew Gallon - Sat November 24th 2007; Rushden & Higham Utd v Rothwell Corinthians; UCL Div One; Res: 0-1; Att: 50 (h/c); Admission: £3; Programme: £1 (28pp); FGIF Match Rating: 3*

Hayden Road may be located in an unattractive part of a dreary town but its survival is worth celebrating. When Southern Leaguers Rushden Town, occupiers of a ground laid out in 1922, vacated the premises 70 years later to take the Max Griggs dollar and merge with Irthlingborough Diamonds, that really should have been the end for an idiosyncratic venue patently unsuitable for top-class non-league football. As the purpose built valley bottom complex at Nene Park took shape for the use of cash-rich Rushden & Diamonds, away up on the hill anachronistic Hayden Road slumbered and mouldered. But Rushden Rangers, a former junior side with a senior team in the Northants Combination, kept alive football at the venue and when neighbours Higham Town needed facilities of a standard which met the growing demands of the United Counties League, Hayden Road got a new lease of life. Over the summer, Higham left their own undeveloped Vine Hill Drive ground, incorporated Rangers into their set-up and revamped Rushden Town's former home with the help of Football Stadia Improvement Fund cash. The result of this tangled tale is a halfway house of a ground at Hayden Road, partly modernised but consisting mostly of relics from a bygone era. In short, well worth a visit!

Glorious Oundle apart, the Nene Valley seems to feature lifeless towns whose sole function is to prepare the east-west traveller for the disappointment that is Northampton. Wellingborough and Raunds, for example, aren't in any sense appealing - but Rushden plumbs new depths in depressing dullness. Its narrow High Street, marooned by a one-way system, is a study in torpor. The presence of a branch of Wimpey says it all. It's bleak, and the locals look hard-up, weary and old before their time. Charity shops abound, the cinema is now a bingo hall, the Christmas decorations pitiful and the county constabulary add to the cheery atmosphere on a day of bone marrow-numbing temperatures by handing out leaflets warning of the presence of handbag
thieves and pickpockets. The criminals round here must be dim. No-one appears as though they've got anything remotely worth nicking. One shop, resolutely shuttered against the world, is called Abyss. I feel on the edge of one. The parish church of St Mary's, uncharacteristically splendid in castellated sandstone, surveys the sorry spectacle from the summit of a grassy mound. In another damning comment on Rushden, the doors are bolted and most gates into the graveyard padlocked. Ho-hum.

Rushden & Higham United's home is two minutes' drive from this miserable scene on the steadily climbing road toward Newton Bromswold. Rough housing estates hem in the ground and a disused, boarded-up factory rots silently opposite. Not an auspicious setting. The main stand, which dates from Hayden Road's opening, and the 1970s vintage social club provide a rather forlorn facade. The entrance is to the right of the stand, past a wooden pay box manned (if that's the right word) by a young woman who seems to know rather less about the history of football in Rushden than I do. The stand, which does not extend beyond the halfway line and has seen its original pitched roof replaced by a sloping cover of propped metal sheeting, is out of bounds to spectators. The facilities beneath the rows of tatty wooden benches are, however, still in use. A plaque on the tunnel lintel commemorates one Cyril Freeman, honorary secretary of Rushden Town between 1919-49. Like Hayden Road, a hardy survivor. Beyond is a cramped corridor with poky (but well heated) dressing rooms and a cubby hole for the match officials. There's a whiff of nostalgia in the air. Or is it liniment, leather and dubbin?

To the left of the condemned stand as you face the pitch is a refreshment hatch (whose menu includes the United Burger, which probably puts the limp Wimpey version to shame), the surprisingly small social club and a rather threadbare function room. A few picnic tables are positioned on a small patio in front but on a bitterly cold afternoon do not attract any custom. Either side of the stand is what looks like the original terracing,
encrusted in moss. These timeworn steps continue behind the town end goal, beyond which the best view of the action is reserved for some of the ugliest houses I've ever seen. All clashing angles and tiny windows, they're the sort of buildings the person who designed them really ought to be compelled to live in. A giant metal frame, running the width of the penalty area and painted bright green, is festooned with netting to prevent wayward shots annoying the neighbours and simultaneously renders redundant most of the terracing. On the far side, in the half of the ground nearest Rushden, is a small kit stand, providing four rows of black plastic tip-up seats and as many metal steps. From here, to the right, the spire of St Mary's can be glimpsed between the houses, indicating how much higher the ground is than the town. Beyond the kit stand are two high, narrow dugouts fashioned from aluminium sheeting. The whole of this side is dominated by tall conifers, separating the football facilities from the adjacent cricket ground, which was laid out at the same time as part of a 10-acre site gifted to the community. Through the foliage, a rather smart modern brick pavilion, complete with clock adorned gable, can be glimpsed. The Newton end consists largely of a flat area of grass leading up to the back gardens of tired red-brick semis. The only concession to spectators here is the hard standing path surrounding the pitch.

And what a pitch! This slopes, really quite steeply, down towards the town end. I can't think of a football equivalent but the gradient will be similar to those at the Batley (Mount Pleasant) and Dewsbury (Crown Flatt, now demolished) rugby league grounds. The playing surface is enclosed with a mixture of fencing - a venerable combo of concrete posts and white poles painted white and also modern plain grey metal railings. The floodlights are new, and excellent for this level of football. There are three masts on both sides, with each containing three lamps. Oddly, three pylons from the previous system remain in place on the main stand side. They shed no light on proceedings but presumably it's too much bother, one way or another, to remove them. Another curiosity of this ground is that it was not built to follow the line of the adjacent Hayden Road, which means the terracing to the right of the main stand tapers almost to nothing in the top-right corner.

The game, between two mid-table teams, turns out to be a lively contest. Commitment is total. To even things out, an icy wind howls up the slope, negating the advantage of kicking downhill, at which the hosts get first
crack. Unmarked Tony Iuepai slices a sitter wide for Corinths at the back post after just 49 seconds but team-mate Sam Johnson is more accurate and breaks the deadlock in the 14th minute when he thumps a loose ball low past Michael Freeman's right hand from the edge of the box. After that, it's pretty much all Rushden & Higham. A torrent of tangerine. Dave Townsend is a threat with his speed on the right wing, Matt Curtis wins everything in the air up front and Gary Broadway buzzes from box to box. But, to the disbelief of the United bench, the home lads can't finish and tempers become frayed when the referee waves away two strong first half penalty shouts - one for a clear trip and then another for an even more obvious handball. In the second
half, Corinths keeper Tom Cross denies Townsend (twice) and skipper Steve Ainge and when he is beaten, by a deflected 20-yard Martin Mitchell volley, luck comes to his rescue and the ball loops just the wrong side of the
crossbar. Corinths punch the air and embrace at the final whistle having ended a run of three league defeats. It's great to see such enthusiasm.

Interestingly, the fact Rushden & Diamonds have today become the first victims of Northwich Victoria's desperate Blue Square Premier campaign fails to register the tiniest flicker of interest in the social club as the final results roll in on the television screens. And that left me to ponder what role the Diamonds now have left to play. Dr Martens boot boy Griggs, an egomaniac who launched the Nene Park revolution because the idea of taking on board someone with ambition, money and ideas was too much for the directors at Northampton Town, built the club with the sole aim of getting into the Football League. When he lost interest, the predictable crash occurred. It may be Rushden & Diamonds end up exactly where Rushden Town used to be which, in terms of the natural order of the modern game, would be entirely appropriate. Without Griggs's cash, this insignificant town wouldn't have come within a country mile of League football. And it probably won't again. In the meantime, Rushden & Higham United will continue to scratch away at crumbling Hayden Road. It's a bizarre story.

contributed & amended on 26/11/07